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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28621341">Alumni Spotlight: Alicia Zimmermann</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/YourPalYourBuddy/pseuds/YourPalYourBuddy'>YourPalYourBuddy</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Check Please! (Webcomic)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Character Study, F/M, Interviews</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 10:14:05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,779</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28621341</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/YourPalYourBuddy/pseuds/YourPalYourBuddy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p><i>To hear her name is to be awestruck.</i><br/><i>Sitting across from her, it’s easy to see why: actress, model, philanthropist, Alicia Zimmermann has done more with her influence and experience than most people do in a lifetime.</i><br/><i>She laughs when I say this, then shakes her head. “That’s kind of you to say,” she says. “But I’m really only doing what anyone else in my position would do, or should. I’ve been blessed with so much. It’s only right.”</i><br/>________________</p><p>An Alumni Spotlight on Alicia Zimmermann :)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Alicia Zimmermann/Bob Zimmermann</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>60</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Alumni Spotlight: Alicia Zimmermann</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>The formatted interview is <a href="https://the-samwell-swallow.tumblr.com/post/639704108972081152/join-us-for-an-alumni-spotlight-on-alicia">here with the pics!</a></p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>____________________________________</p><p> </p><p>To hear her name is to be awestruck.</p><p>Sitting across from her, it’s easy to see why: actress, model, philanthropist, Alicia Zimmermann has done more with her influence and experience than most people do in a lifetime.</p><p>She laughs when I say this, then shakes her head. “That’s kind of you to say,” she says. “But I’m really only doing what anyone else in my position would do, or should. I’ve been blessed with so much. It’s only right.”</p><p>We’re drinking lemonade on the porch of her AirBnB. When she welcomed me inside, she told me her history with the place; it’s the nicest yellow house that’s closest to Faber Ice Arena, and she and Mr. Zimmermann — “Bob, I think he’d be pleased if you called him Bob in your article. He’s never liked being called ‘Mr. Zimmermann’ or Robert.’ Oh, nothing scandalous, don’t worry.” — she and Bob make a game out of finding yellow houses whenever they stay anywhere for a long time. They’ve been renting out this place for ages.</p><p>“Why yellow?” I ask.</p><p>Alicia smiles like a sunset, something a little melancholy but still lovely. “My parents’ house was yellow, and when they passed … yellow houses are a way for me to still have something of them.”</p><p>She brushes off my condolences as if to say <em> that’s sweet, but it’s okay. </em> For a second I see Ms. Alicia Zimmermann, Actress, before the façade melts and Alicia returns. We talk a little about who’s winning their game and she tells me that Bob has a knack for it.</p><p>“I’m still not convinced he isn’t asking people to paint them just to win, but he’s never admitted it.”</p><p>“Would he?” I ask, and she rolls her eyes in the way only fond people can. </p><p>“Bob would color everything yellow if he thought it’d make me happy,” she says. “His love is big like that.”</p><p>From here we detour into how they met. We all know the story for the most part: Alicia, Bob, a spilled drink in a rented-out Chicago bowling alley, and next day the headline ALICIA FENWAY’S NEW BEAU. But, she tells me, there’s more to the story than just that.</p><p>I say, “You’re not telling me he spilled his drink on you,” and she arches an elegant eyebrow. </p><p>“He didn’t,” she says, and I relax. And then she says, “It was a hot dog. With everything on it.”</p><p>“No.”</p><p>“Mmhmm.” Alicia makes the face she makes in <em> Kiss Me When You Land </em> when Claude teases her character about all the little things she collects. It’s a look that says, <em> believe me, he still gets shit for this. </em></p><p>The rest of the story is this: just before that, Alicia’s current boyfriend had just said modeling wasn’t a real job, she should focus on her fashion merchandising degree, actually she should just go back to school for something useful, actually—</p><p>And then Bob threw the hot dog from two lanes over. And it splattered all over her shirt, and her boyfriend had punched Bob in the face.</p><p>“It was more of a slap really,” she says nonchalantly. “They were both drunk. But my boyfriend stormed off to the hotel — and locked me out, actually, I forgot about that — and Bob lent me his jacket to cover the ketchup and mustard stain and walked me out to my car. The paparazzi snapped us, the headline dropped, I broke up with my ex, and concentrated on being single for awhile.”</p><p>I have some lemonade. “When did you and Bob start dating?”</p><p>She hums, then says, “I think it was eight months after?”</p><p>“Eight!”</p><p>Apparently they left the bowling alley on strained terms, which is understandable. Her job had her flying back and forth between New York and Paris and Milan and, later, Hollywood, and Bob was playing 82 games with the Pittsburgh Penguins. She says it was a fluke they met at all, both on a stayover from other things, and she’d left his jacket in her New York apartment. She moved out of that flat four months after the Bowling Alley Incident. She’d forgotten it there.</p><p>“My former landlord packed it up. I opened it during Paris Fashion Week and tried it on,” and here she smiles again, this time like a sunrise, “and when I put my hands in the pocket, I found this.”</p><p>Alicia slides a napkin across the table. It has ten numbers on it. </p><p>“He left his number in the jacket,” I say. </p><p>She smiles, blushing a little. “He did.”</p><p>There are moments when you’re so close to a love story that it seeps out and colors everything a perfect peachy sort of pink. Being here in this yellow house with the beginning of their relationship under my fingers, this is one of them. </p><p>They didn’t officially start right away. It was only a few months after finding the napkin that they managed to be in the same timezone, a few weeks after that that they managed to be in the same room. </p><p>But at the end of Fashion Week when she was coming home from a party — a little drunk and a lot invulnerable — she called. And he picked up. And said, “Is it you?”</p><p>“And I said, ‘Is that what you say to all the girls?’ and he said, ‘Only when I’m hoping they’ll call.’”</p><p>Ms. Alicia Zimmermann, Actress, doesn’t crinkle her nose when she smiles. Alicia does. </p><p>She tells me a little bit about their relationship and how the guys on Bob’s team chirped him so hard the first time she came to a game that she brought a giant sign to the next one. And then, after that, she kissed him in the players’ tunnels under the arena. I slide the napkin back and she holds it gently.</p><p>They were married in June and honeymooned in France, where Bob got miffed every time someone said something about his Québécois accent and Alicia made a plan to try every eclair she could find. It was, she says, bliss. Looking back on it is a blur of pastry and laughter and floating whites sheets, that week they spent by the seaside, lavender sprigs on her pillow.</p><p>Alicia says, “Coming home was difficult. We were both so busy working that we bought a house that neither of us spent more than … two consecutive weeks in during that whole year? Something like that. It helped that we were both traveling at the same time. It didn’t help that we missed each other. I’ve known people who have made marriages like ours work, but I don’t think they liked each other a whole lot.”</p><p>The stress of balancing modeling, acting, and marriage when her spouse was frequently so far away led to her burnout in June of 1991. When she talks about it, she speaks with a certain level of care for her younger self. I don’t know how to ask her about this.</p><p>Alicia reads my face easily. “We were hounded by the press so much,” she says. “It’s like they were part of our relationship. I’ve been media trained since I signed with my agency, but this level of — investigation, as it were, that was new to me. He and I are both very famous to a relatively niche number of people, so we were often dragged into the other person’s interviews. It became too much.”</p><p>“How did you work through it?” I ask, drinking more lemonade. When I compliment her on it, she tells me Bob handmade it specially for us. I am unreasonably touched by this.</p><p>“We screeched to a halt when my parents passed in early July. I came in from a Guess shoot and he came home from a Caps game and we both looked at each other from the doorway, and I think we both knew we needed a break.”</p><p>Not from each other. She’s quick to clarify this. They took a three week break from their jobs and focused on being together and made plans for how they were going to make this work. Phone calls every night when possible, but definitely on Fridays. Leaving little notes for each other around the house when their schedules just miss each other. And when they line up, at least two nights a week where they cook together.</p><p>Or, he cooks. Alicia laughs and tells me a story about her, Bob, the 1991-1992 Penguins, and a poorly baked cherry pie that resulted in food poisoning. Now she drinks wine and hands him things as he needs them.</p><p>They fall into a groove over the summer and travel more and when they come home, he repaints the house yellow. She says she falls in love with him a little more when he does that. </p><p>At this point, she tells me, she’s thinking about whether it’s time to pull the plug on modeling for a little while. She has good contacts, and still does; at this very moment, she has the personal phone numbers of at least eleven major fashion houses. If there was any good reason to take a break, recentering is one of the best.</p><p>The porch door slides open and Bob pokes his head out. I’m too starstruck to say anything immediately, but there’s no need. He smiles at me and says something in French to Alicia, who replies in kind. He blows her a kiss and goes back inside.</p><p>“Oh my,” I say, before I can help myself. I am immediately embarrassed. “Sorry.”</p><p>Alicia’s nose crinkles in a smile. “I know the feeling.”</p><p>We go back into her 1991. She gives me the highlights: her famous cover and spread in September’s <em> Vogue, </em> her movie <em> Junebug </em> coming out in November, Bob’s concussion in late November, and, around Hanukkah, the realization that there would be another member of the family in August.</p><p>“My cravings were so weird,” she says, shaking her head. She refills our lemonade. “I remember eating celery and mayonnaise almost every day and having pickle juice when Bob was having wine. I used to tell Jack that that’s why he was such a picky eater as a kid, because I already ate the weird things for him.”</p><p>Jack Laurent Zimmermann was born on August 3rd, 1992, and was born again on September 5th, 1994. Alicia shows me a picture of Bob holding a tiny bundled baby up on tiny skates and says, “That was the day we first took him skating.”</p><p>What was it like, raising a hockey prodigy? She twists her lip the same way she does in <em> Flyby. </em> We are nearing a difficult conversation.</p><p>“On good days, it was very good. Good days were the ones when no one mentioned Bob in the locker room or on the ice or in the stands. Those were the days when he would come out of the locker room with his bag over his shoulder.” She tucks her hair behind her ear and considers me frankly. “On bad days, he rolled his bag on the ground. Those days were very, very bad.”</p><p>I’m about to ask another question — about the draft, about Kent Parson, about <em> what happened, if you’re up to talking about it </em>— when she rests a hand on mine. I stumble to a stop before I begin.</p><p>Alicia Zimmermann, Mother, says, “Jack’s old enough that he can talk about his past if he wants to, and on his own terms. It’s his story to tell, not mine. The only thing that’s relevant for your paper to know is that it was difficult, that we love him, and that we are proud of the man he’s become and every version of himself that he has been, and will be. I hope he knows that.”</p><p>“I’m sure he does.” I am near tears at this point. I clear my throat, and she takes her hand back. “Let’s talk about afterward then, and your movies in the meantime?”</p><p>She’s happy to change topics. She talks about her experiences in Hollywood and all the directors she loved working with — “Oh, I loved being on set with Myrtle, she’s such a laugh” — and the ones she’s always wanted to work with — “You saw Duran’s <em> Happy, Just Happy </em> right? Ah! That scene change when the fish turn into the disco ball? Absolutely brilliant” — and her favorite costars, and of course That Moment at the 2003 Oscars.</p><p>“Everyone saw,” she tells me. “It was rather embarrassing, I won’t lie. But Frederick gave me my Oscar back in the end, though poor Oscar’s head is still rolling around somewhere in the theater’s plumbing.”</p><p>This was around the start of her outreach at Giving Tree, a Boston-based organization working to re-house the homeless in every city possible. Alicia first started as a spokesperson responsible for wining and dining politicians, actors, and models to convince them to support her cause. Luckily, her background meant that was all but assured.</p><p>“This is what I meant earlier,” Alicia tells me. She has become quite animated over the course of the afternoon; she nearly knocks over the lemonade pitcher with an expansive gesture. It’s honestly quite electric to see someone like her so passionate about this. “I am someone with contacts, experience, and money. What good is it, if I do not do something with it? What good am I?”</p><p>With her help, Giving Tree reduced homelessness in Boston by 70% from 2003 to now. It’s been difficult, and the housing market crash certainly didn’t help matters, but they have new donors every day. As of right now they are currently preparing for their annual fundraising gala.</p><p>“And from there, you know,” she says, “you meet new people, you find out about new causes, you do your best to invest and uplift voices when you can. We recently started working with You Can Play and several environmental activist groups. I really do believe in leaving places better than you found them. I want Jack and any future grandchildren I have to be free to be themselves on a healthy planet.”</p><p>This is very noble, and I tell her so. She bobs her head from side to side in the manner of someone pleased by praise but unsure of where to place it, as if it were unnecessary. I have no doubt that it is. It’s still something that needs to be said.</p><p>A thought strikes me. “Was that a hint? About Jack and future grandchildren?”</p><p>“Oh! No,” she says, laughing. “No, it wasn’t. It just felt like something worth saying.”</p><p>“You’re in town for Jack’s team’s Parents’ Weekend, is that right?” I ask, and she nods. “How does it feel?”</p><p>She hums. “How does it feel to be here for one of his games? It feels good. Bob and I took a walk along the river yesterday and then ducked into the pastry shop I loved when I was a student, and it felt right. Almost like a homecoming. It’s nice to be able to share these things with Jack.”</p><p>We talk five, ten, twenty year reunions and she recounts her graduation day, when she threw her cap in the air and ran into the Pond with her friends. </p><p>“I might do that again later,” she says to herself. She seems to address these words to the past as if she could reach her younger self with them. Then she remembers me, and smiles again. “Always worth jumping in when you can, eh?”</p><p>We’re nearly at the end of our time. I have one more question to ask.</p><p>“Are you happy?”</p><p>It appears to take her by surprise. She doesn’t respond immediately, instead seeming to weigh each word individually in her head. It’s clear to see why she’s such an exceptional choice of representative, how her films were so successful, how her modeling career soared to such heights. </p><p>Alicia Zimmermann has a measured, deliberate air about her. And that’s why I know when she answers with a firm, gentle “yes,” she isn’t lying. </p><p>I thank her for her time and she shakes my hand, and then says, “How do you feel about a hug?” Her hugs are very solid and reassuring. It is impossible to think that yesterday she was mostly unknown to me when she hugs like this. It’s a neat trick and, somehow, not a trick at all. It’s simply another iteration of the earnest Zimmermann charm. </p><p>I’m closing the front door behind me with my notes and a lingering cloud of the best perfume I’ve ever smelled when I hear her yell, “Bob! Swimsuits!”</p><p>From upstairs, an answer. “Are we jumping in?”</p><p>And then, the last thing before I shut the door entirely: “Yes!”</p><p>____________________________________</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>aaa thanks for reading! this was a prompt for <a href="https://the-samwell-swallow.tumblr.com/">The Swallow,</a> and I hope y'all enjoyed it &lt;3</p><p>lemme know what y'all think here or <a href="https://ivecarvedawoodenheart.tumblr.com/">come find me on tumblr :)</a></p></blockquote></div></div>
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